Jay's Speed Mod

[Task]

Herein I shall detail my mad haxxor skillz, and how I was able to mod my PSP to make my AG craft go faster. Note that no actual haxxoring is required, no animals were harmed in this process, and the opinions expressed in the, yeah, whatever, you're not reading this anymore. Go ahead to the main article below if you're still interested.

Not too long after I'd gotten my PSP and Pure, I spent some time working out how to go as fast as I could. I figured it out, but I wasn't very happy with what I'd found out.
For whatever reason, it was decided in development that pitching down should make you go faster. Not just in Pure, oh no, in Pulse as well! Likely in HD too, but we can hope that saner minds have prevailed. 8 P
Anyway, here I was, wanting to go as fast as I could, but having difficulty steering while always holding forward. Then it occurred to me: I have a whole other directional input device I'm not using here! All I had to do was use the analog pad for "always pitch forward" and then I could use the d-pad for steering like usual! As a side benefit, if I needed to cancel that forward pitch (to gain altitude say) then I could pull back on the d-pad and cancel the forward pitch. The plan was solid, all I needed was to find a way to implement it! And thus, I created:

Jay's Speed Mod v1.0
It's a piece of tape.
Really, just a little piece of clear tape. Stick it over your analog nub while it's fully forward and stick it down. Go into TT mode (all starting grids are flat level) and you'll see your ship moving slowly forward without you touching the X button. If you're seeing any sideways drift in that movement, unstick and re-apply.

I shortly found two problems with this solution:
1) It tends to slowly unstick with time, so you get less and less forward pitch and eventually have to replace the speed mod. Luckily the material is highly cheap and plentiful. 8 )
2) Any other game in the world will have issues with the speed mod, so you'll have to unapply and reapply for any other game. Annoying.

So I could carry a small roll of tape with your PSP, but clearly there was a lot of room for improvement here.

Jay's Speed Mod v1.5
Two pieces of tape!
By using multiple pieces of tape, I was able to partially overcome issue 1. This solution only made issue 2 more prevalent however, and my PSP was starting to look pretty ugly in the bottom-left corner. Not a long-term solution. Something better must be had!

It wasn't too long before I had a major brainwave, and suddenly I had the perfect replacement for my now inferior speed mod version 1...

Jay's Speed Mod v2.0
By taking my high-end exacto blade to a common piece of plastic, I was able to fasion for myself a crescent-shaped little doodad that I could insert into the hole for the anlog stick, below the nub, to hold it in any particular constant position I desired! With the right raw materials (1 Bic pen cap, red because as any Orc knows, it'll be faster if it's red) and my highly-developed exacto blade skills (no, really, I've got, like, a +3 with exacto blades!) I quickly had a prototype! With some adjustments and testing, speed mod version 2 was fully operational. And a beautiful thing it was. It held my analog nub pointing full forward, I could put it in and take it out whenever I wanted, all was sweetness. Around this time I picked up Pulse and found out that while keeping up with the AI opponents was all I could do without a boost pad or a turbo normally, I was the fastest ship on the track with the speed mod installed.

This solution also displayed problems after months of usage:
1) It's a small piece of plastic that is made to be removable. It falls out easily and is lost even easier. I think the original speed mod lasted 4 months, during which I lost and re-found it 4 times. The final time I didn't re-find it. Surprising really, considering how bright red it was.
2) When it's uninstalled, what to DO with it? It's a small piece of worthless plastic to anyone but me. To me it's the product of a half hour intense labour and vital to my best times. I don't want to lose it, and I can't have it installed all the time. My first thought was to store it with the UMD in the case, but opening that case has to be done carefully or else you lose the damn thing, as I found out no less than 3 times. 8 P

So I made a new one (blue this time, the most common Bic pen cap variety) and pondered on how to improve my design. Shortly I had another idea! And this lead to the development of...

Jay's Speed Mod v2.5
I fasioned a new speed mod, this time out of black (to go with the black PSP of course, with my new modifications I figured this one would be permanent!), and this time with a bit of a "handle" on it. Drilling a hole through this little handle was difficult, but worked. Yay, 1/8" drillbits. Then, some black string through the hole, and the holder corner on my PSP, and suddenly I had attached the speed mod to the PSP!
This was the version of speed mod that I took to Vermont for the recent WWT. When Arnaud offered to put the Pulse DLC on my PSP I was certainly thrilled and handed it over quickly, and that soon lead to me having to tell the story to Isaac and Arnaud about what that silly little thing on my PSP was! 8 )
"It's my speed mod, it holds the nose down so I go faster!"
With all the excitement of the WWT, I think they forgot about it entirely though. 8 D

Anyway, this version of the speed mod definitely lasted the longest, but it's not quite the final evolution of the product. For you see, I found a problem even with this 2.5 version:
1) When uninstalled, the speed mod has an alarming tendency to catch on anything and everything possible. The string broke 3 times (and was re-tied twice) before I eventually lost it.

After much thought and consideration, and needing my damn speed mod back, I recently came up with...

Jay's Speed Mod v3.0
A somewhat smaller and "cut-down" version of speed mod 2.0, held in place with a god-damned piece of tape!

It seems there's no escaping the brilliance and simplicity of speed mod version 1! That simple piece of tape was insufficient on it's own, but combined with the elegance of a custom-built solution like speed mod version 2, the combination seems unbeatable!

So this is the current state of my speed mod, and so far it's holding up really well. I don't expect to develop the line any further, I believe it has reached the end of its own product lifecycle. With all R&D completed, I figured it was likely time to release my full findings. I have no doubt that others have come up with similar ideas/concepts/solutions (since it seemed pretty obvious at the time), but I doubt anyone else has persued it to the degree I have. 8 )

So, if you see me, and you've brought a Bic pen cap, I can fashion for you your very own Jay's Speed Mod if you want. And hopefully in the future an "even keel" will go back to being the fastest aerodynamic profile and we'll never again have need of the speed mod.

We can only hope.


Yes, I know this article would be seriously improved by pictures, but I don't have a digital camera, so we're all SOL on that one. Sorry. 8 )

[mdhay]

Err... Lol?

[Rapier Racer]

I hope this sort of **** doesn't work on HD (though it probably will) its bad enough how much of an unbelievable difference it makes already to Pure, I don't know about Pulse.

(been on the receiving end of someone else testing this out online)

In my view it's also cheating, if you can't physically hold the stick forward like this when playing, so now basically if you don't read these boards or manage to figure it out for yourself already your screwed. Brilliant! No wonder I can't be bothered playing Wipeout online anymore first custom firmware hacks now button jamming, imagine someone using both.

[RJ O'Connell]

Can't rule it out, but most of those prospective cheaters are probably going to stay away from reading this thread here because they can't discuss CFW at length, anywhere on this forum.

I do applaud Jay, though, for the time and effort he put into the various types of the Speed Mod.

[BARTgai]

LOL, great idea Task!

[Darkdrium777]

Custom Firmware =/= cheating but whatever. It seems this idea is pretty widespread here so I won't argue with prejudice. :/

As for the speed mod, well it's a good idea but I don't think using it to make record times or to race online is cool, since it gives you an unfair advantage over the players who do not have that mod. Everyone should have that mod so it is fair, or else don't use it.

[JABBERJAW]

I figured this out after jay, and it is a bit faster. I also have a piece of crap holding the analog stick foward with a piece of tape over it. The problem with banning this is,

1) I can do this without tape the way I hold the psp. It is a pain, but in about 5 minutes I was getting similar times to using the device. If this was removed, I would be the only one able to do it, maybe this is a good idea

2) If you play with your thumb on the dpad, the game is not fun to play, with trying to hold that freaking thing foward all of the time, "dammit, I didn't turn left!!" sort of stuff ruins it.

3) When you hit the wall using this config, the wall sucks you into it much harder than if you ride flat, slowing you down much more. In online modes with the crappy framerate, this really can get to someone using it.



Anyway, I don't see a problem with it. The design of the game with the pitch foward making you go faster is completely stupid, because of the difficulty pitching foward with your thumb on the dpad.

[RJ O'Connell]

Certainly doesn't sound as bad as...

oh, I don't know, how about doing an aerial maneuver and gaining a brief, powerful turbo boost upon returning to the surface?

[Task]

As for the speed mod, well it's a good idea but I don't think using it to make record times or to race online is cool, since it gives you an unfair advantage over the players who do not have that mod.

Well, that's kind of the point here. Who doesn't have a piece of tape? Anyone can do this, it ain't tough. So there's no unfair advantage to anyone. You'll get fewer BR opportunities, so it's a bit of a tradeoff, but I've always sucked at pulling off the BR, so it's a no-brainer for me.
Truly, it shouldn't have any positive effect on your speed at all (indeed, it should have a negative effect!), and I'm kind of hoping that pointing out how ridiculous it is to be able to get a significant speed increase with a piece of tape will stop it from showing up in future versions. 8 )

[Frances_Penfold]

Here's my $0.02, for what it is worth

1. I think it is unfortunate that pitch control per se affects speed at all, and that this discussion has to happen.

2. It seems weird to ban a technique that is based so clearly on the game's natural mechanics. All good pilots use pitch control, and stupidly, the game provides a small speed advantage for nose-down flight. So where exactly does one draw the line for saying this amount of pitch control is permitted while this amount is not? As Jabberjaw points out, you can implement the technique manually if you are so inclined.

3. If there WERE to be a ban, the most natural way to implement it might be to say that pilots are only allowed to steer the ship using one method (either D-pad or nub) but not both at the same time.

4. There is a long history of controller modification for racing games outside of Wipeout. In Mario Kart Super Circuit, it was discovered that players could do zig zag mini turbos if they can switch back/forth between the L/R directions on the d-pad fast enough that the "zero" position was never registered. That's pretty hard. Then folks discovered that if you used a well-worn gamepad (e.g., on a Nintendo DS that had been used for snaking in MKDS), the technique was much easier. And then folks started mod'ing their d-pads, filing away at its base. Of course, there was disagreement about the use of ZZMTs but given that they could be performed on an unmoddified controller, where do you draw the line? It is a similar situation for what we are seeing here for Wipeout Pure/Pulse.

5. Based on a half-hour of experimenting with the speed mod (implemented with a small piece of labeling tape) I don't see obvious effect for my personal racing style. I tried the Zone ship to race Staten Park and Anulpha Pass-- tracks that I have races thousands of time for lap records-- using the ghost for my top lap time as a comparison. I see no difference, though it is possible that there is a small one that is statistical in nature, with many laps needed to be run to see the effect. On the other hand, I use a lot of pitch control and side shift in my racing, so your mileage may vary

6. I will be interested to see what the very top racers experience when using the technique-- how much does it help them?

[RJ O'Connell]

I'm still competent without using pitch control, and for me it doesn't work as well. The steering absolutely shits out because of the bass-ackwards pitch mechanics this game has compared to WipEout-WO3. Instead of turning harder, you end up going slightly faster into the wall!

[lunar]

Well just for the record, and so nobody thinks I`m attacking them, I don`t think that having cfw in itself is cheating, and I don`t think this mod in itself is cheating. But I do think it means that comparing times on Pure and Pulse is becoming pointless, now that there are two fairly easy mods to increase speed. Arena challenges, Xlink with known and trusted friends, and the euro pure tables can still be "no-mods" clean competition, but apart from that Pure and Pulse are pretty broken for competition, imo. Doesn`t make them bad games, Pure is a brilliant game, but there comes a point when it is just too confusing to be able to compare and assess times and performances anymore. This is what happened to Fusion and it`s what I feel about Pure and Pulse now.

I don`t think the tape-mod could or should be banned. I agree with Al`s and Frances` reasons for this. A ban would not enforcable. It`s just a shame that Pure has this feature to its "physics" or whatever you call it.

[Darkdrium777]

I also agree with the fact that pitch down to increase speed makes no sense, but in a real competition (Any type of competition), the players have to be able to perform without any exterior aid, using only their talents and abilities to the fullest. IMO this mod classifies as "exterior aid" which is why I don't think it should be used at all.
Sure, everyone has a piece of tape, but the game isn't supposed to be played with that piece of tape on, or that modded controller. I agree that everyone else that post their records on Wipeout Game might not have the idea of being fair (Look at the cheaters), but here we can talk to each other and agree to some standards of what is fair and what is not. And in my opinion this mod is not fair simply because it's not you that's pitching down, but a piece of tape.
I don't know if my point is clear enough, if it is not please excuse me because my main language is French, but I think that this mod, while a good idea to be able to pitch down without hurting your thumb, accounts for the laziness and the inability to do it yourself when you use that mod.
Sorry if it sounds a bit harsh but that's personally what I believe. I'm not calling you lazy or anything Jay, I'm just discussing my ideas on why it should not be used at all if you will want to enter times on these tables here at WipeoutZone, just for the same kind of reasons Custom Firmware users are not allowed to post times here (Which is why I don't post.)

EDIT: Just to make it a bit clearer: if anyone can have a piece of tape, anyone can have custom firmware. Nowadays it is really easy to get it. This is kinda like "re-using" you argument, and I hope you see where the flaw is.

[RJ O'Connell]

There are some CFW users with Pure and Pulse times on this site, who I won't specifically name. The difference is they don't exploit the game with it and post ridiculous times (i.e. 30 seconds to do 5 laps).

Aaaaanyway, back on topic, please...

[AnErare]

I've tried the mod myself and absolutely enjoy the way the altered pitch makes the ships stick more to the track :> This is really noticeable in zone mode at very high speeds; I've had a great laugh at the altered behaviour of the ship when it takes off

I do though agree with Darkdrium.. If one can pull this off by means of manual application and it improves their performance that's really nice, but if it is used with means of "exterior-aid" as he called it I think it is fundamentally faulty.

[Task]

Yeah, I actually much prefer how the craft stick to the track more with the pitch always down. Definitely not everyone's way to fly (I'm wondering if anyone's going to use the speed mod to always pitch back? Fly!) but it suits my style of racing well.
I haven't tried it in Zone though, that's an interesting observation.

if anyone can have a piece of tape, anyone can have custom firmware. Nowadays it is really easy to get it. This is kinda like "re-using" you argument, and I hope you see where the flaw is.

Good post Darkdrium, very well thought out, I like your line of reasoning.
However, the flaw is that I don't _personally_ have anything against CFW or times achieved on it. If I was pro one and anti the other, then yeah, I'd see the definite issue there, but I'm pretty much indifferent to both. With, without, whatever. I just like to race! 8 )
So I'm on one side of the fence and you're on the other.
No problem with that, it's a pretty fine line, we'll have lots of people on one side or the other.

Looks like we're all in agreement on what I'd call the most important point though: No way should pitch control grant a speed boost.

And I'm pretty happy about that.

[JABBERJAW]

I guess the main point i have to offer is I agree with Jay. Also, the game is just NOT fun to play trying to hold the stupid dpad up all the time (which is required for good times). A piece of tape is all it takes for most people, and some won't even like it because of the wall gripping your ship.

[Frances_Penfold]

So how much of a difference do you guys think the mod really makes? I raced several tracks with a ghost and saw no obvious effect.

I understand we all fly a bit differently, use different ships and favor different tracks, so maybe I am the odd one out?

I would really like to hear what Asayyeah and Mad-Ice have to say about this, they dominate at Pure/Pulse time trials and would seem to be in the best place to speculate about its effects on actual race/lap times

[Darkdrium777]

I think that pitch control has lost all it's meaning now with this speed increase thing. Before you had to align the ship with the track, if you had a jump that landed on an upward piece of track you had to pitch up to prevent the ship from hitting the track floor. Now, even if you have that situation you can pitch down all you want, the stiffness of the anti-grav "cushion" will make sure you don't hit the track. :/

[Task]

Yes, absolutely. It used to be a tool in the hands of the highly skilled, now it's just ridiculous.

Frances: The difference it makes, I think would be something like "7 kph". So at Vector speeds, it's a huge difference, and at Phantom it's very small. I haven't done any serious testing, I just know that it's a slight speed increase, more noticable at the lower speed classes. It's not going to win many races for you, but it'll definitely help lower your TT records a couple tenths.